From Gujarat, we headed North to Rajasthan's only hill station of Mt. Abu. We had read that the town was a big vacation destination for Indians... and were expecting to be the only non-Indian tourists in town. How wrong we were quickly became obvious when three tour busses full of sun burnt Europeans pulled into town behind the local bus we'd arrived on. We'd forgotten that we'd crossed over into the Rajasthan,... the state that sees the most tourists in all of India,  and that Mt. Abu is home to some of the most incredible Jain temples in the whole country.

Like the Cameron Highlands (a hill station that we visited in in Malaysia -- See June 3, 2004) the city's altitude brought cool and moist temperatures -- a nice change from the rest of sweaty India -- and beautiful mountain scenery. The center piece of the town is the large lake Nakki and shore side strolls are a wonderful way to spend an early evening. We puzzled, however, over the polo ground which looks like it has never been used as a polo ground but is actually a fairly well worn football (soccer) pitch.

But what most people come to see in Mt. Abu is the incredible Jain temples. So, we set out to take a peek and see what all the fuss was about. Although transport is inexpensive, we opted to walk simply for the exercise. We were glad we did as we witnessed a horrible jeep roll over accident. Mark was the first person on the scene and helped to pull several women and a baby out of the vehicle. Fortunately, no one appeared to have serious injuries. Despite this detour we did successfully find a stair case leading to a temple... at around the 250th stair we began to wonder if this was the way to the temples that we were looking for... Lonely Planet hadn't mentioned anything about stairs up to the Jain temples.

As it turned out, we had arrived at a Hindu temple that was hidden high in the hills. It is a popular pilgrimage spot, so although the temple itself isn't much to look at... watching the pilgrims arrive at the temple and go through purification rituals was fascinating. We also had the opportunity to chat with a Hindu Monk (for lack of a better phrase) who was very welcoming, curious and informative. After making our way back down those stairs, the water-seller at the bottom directed us to the Dilwara temples -- those we'd intended to find in the first place.

Photography isn't allowed at Dilwara which is really unfortunate as the marble carving on display is  exquisite. It's been described as "having an effect akin to  white marble fireworks," which we find a beautiful description, but it's not quite descriptive enough. The temples are simply amazing. The oldest and most impressive temple in the complex is the Vimal Vasahi which has a huge number of Ivory elephants at the entrance and 54 different Buddha shrines in addition to the central shrine. The temple complex is well worth seeing for anyone who will ever be in the area.